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House of Glass by Susan Fletcher

Genre: mainly gothic. ⭐️Stars from Goodreads: 4. ⭐️Stars from me: 3.5

House of Glass is a platypus of literature. The book has a body of one creation and a tail of another one. It starts as a gothic mystery but turns into War and Peace in the end.

What is the book about

It’s a story about Clara, a young woman whose bones are fragile like glass and whose emotional state has also been shattered by a recent loss. Clara is hired to work in a glass house of an old estate, and of course the estate hides many mysteries which Clara will try to solve.

What I liked about the book

The gothic part

The book creates a perfect gothic atmosphere. There is an old mansion, spooky sounds, and a history of complicated lives.

The mystery

I absolutely loved Clara’s attitude which turned a spooky story into almost a detective one.

Characters

The characters are not either good or bad. They are multidimensional and complicated. It’s hard to come to final conclusions about them.

Storylines

There are many storylines and they are all connected on some level.

Chekhov’s guns

Each detail mentioned in the story has its function.

What I liked less

Women’s rights agenda

I know it’s a sensitive topic so I’ll try to tread it carefully. I understand the necessity of acknowledging the problems, both historical and current ones, but modern female-authored literature seems to be overusing the topic to the point that it’s starting to repel people rather than draw the limelight to the problems.

Random villain

It feels like the characters were drawing straws to pick up a villain, and the one who landed the role didn’t really fit it.

The platypus tail

When I want to read War and Peace, I read Tolstoy. If I am drawn to the book by its gothic atmosphere, I prefer the atmosphere to persist till the end.

Final thoughts

It’s a well-written book with an interesting and complicated plot that for the most part combines mystery and gothic. If it was not for the ending I would have easily given the book five stars.

10 thoughts on “House of Glass by Susan Fletcher”

  1. What a lovely, well thought-out review. It sounds like that this is an excellent book on so many levels – I know exactly what you mean when you are suddenly confronted with an unexpected ending that knocks you completely out of the setting and scenario.

    1. Hi NS, I’m so happy to see you again too! You were one of those people I remembered and wanted to talk to again. How’s your blog doing?

      1. Hey there 🙂
        Blog is doing well, I post every 2-3 days, mostly about the books but also doing some film/TV and creative writing now. Hope you are OK, nice to hear from you.

        1. Oh, film and TV sounds so exciting! You actually gave me an idea with that! I might try something extra too 🙂 Thank you for the inspiration!

          1. OK 😀
            I don’t get as many likes for TV and film posts because many followers seem to be only interested in reading about books, however I just write what I want to 🙂

  3. hahaha, a platypus. That is awesome. I was intrigued by the fact that this starts out as a Gothic story, but perhaps I’ll skip it if it doesn’t stick with that. I like my themes to keep going throughout the book. 😀

    1. A lot of it is gothic and is quite good, good writing, and you probably won’t be bored with the story as there’s this mystery that she’s trying to solve. I was just confused by the platypus thing that does start at some point.

  4. Excellent read. It captures the frailty of life and how easily judgments can be made without knowing or understanding the whole story.

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